Results
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£110.00Diversions After Benjamin Britten (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
Suite by Lucy Pankhurst, Simon Dobson, Paul McGhee and Gavin HigginsHaving devised a collective centenary tribute for Michael Tippett at the 2006 RNCM Festival of Brass (Variations on a Theme of Michael Tippett by five eminent composers of brass band music, PHM002), I commissioned this companion piece as a Benjamin Britten tribute for the 2013 festival. In the late 1970s, while researching a book about the English composer, and Britten's first teacher, Frank Bridge (1879 - 1941), I came across a copy of the printed score of Benjamin Britten's Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (Op.10) for string orchestra, in which Britten had written descriptive titles for each of the variations suggesting appropriate character traits of his much loved mentor and guide. The character variations are cast in march, song and dance forms.Taking inspiration from Britten's youthful tribute, I invited four award-winning composers, who have all made significant contributions to the brass band medium, to create their own personal reflections on four aspects of Britten's character and music, designed to form a suite of Diversions after Benjamin Britten, but which can also be played separately.Lucy Pankhurst's hauntingly lyrical Prelude: His Depth refers to the emotional and symbolic subtexts that underpin Britten's operas, taking its musical cue from Britten's many arrangements of folk songs. The flugel horn takes a prominent role throughout.Simon Dobson's breathless Scherzo: His Vitality reminds us with its rapid passage work and leaping bass 'groove' that Britten loved tennis and fast cars in his younger days.Paul McGhee's evocative interpretation of the March: His Sympathy represents Benjamin Britten's pacifism, as the composer writes: 'We view the music through the eyes of a pacifist. Whilst war and violence surround us, we do not engage in it and though it continues to happen around us. With the use of muted effects in most of the band throughout the piece, the flugel horn is the lone voice of reason, standing firm against the mechanical and destructive society in which it is forced to live. As the machine of war continues around the lone voice, the voice is gradually dismissed and mocked as the war machine rumbles on into the distance.'In an extended finale, entitled Toccata: His Skill, Gavin Higgins celebrates Benjamin Britten's consummate creativity. For the RNCM Festival of Brass premiere, the four contrasting movements were framed and connected by Britten's Fanfare for St. Edmundsbury for three trumpets, with the trumpet soloists spaced round the hall. I am grateful to the Britten Estate and publishers Boosey & Hawkes for giving permission for the elements of Britten's fanfare to be incorporated in the collective work.- Paul HindmarshDuration: 19.30
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£45.00
Diversions After Benjamin Britten (Brass Band - Score only)
Suite by Lucy Pankhurst, Simon Dobson, Paul McGhee and Gavin HigginsHaving devised a collective centenary tribute for Michael Tippett at the 2006 RNCM Festival of Brass (Variations on a Theme of Michael Tippett by five eminent composers of brass band music, PHM002), I commissioned this companion piece as a Benjamin Britten tribute for the 2013 festival. In the late 1970s, while researching a book about the English composer, and Britten's first teacher, Frank Bridge (1879 - 1941), I came across a copy of the printed score of Benjamin Britten's Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (Op.10) for string orchestra, in which Britten had written descriptive titles for each of the variations suggesting appropriate character traits of his much loved mentor and guide. The character variations are cast in march, song and dance forms.Taking inspiration from Britten's youthful tribute, I invited four award-winning composers, who have all made significant contributions to the brass band medium, to create their own personal reflections on four aspects of Britten's character and music, designed to form a suite of Diversions after Benjamin Britten, but which can also be played separately.Lucy Pankhurst's hauntingly lyrical Prelude: His Depth refers to the emotional and symbolic subtexts that underpin Britten's operas, taking its musical cue from Britten's many arrangements of folk songs. The flugel horn takes a prominent role throughout.Simon Dobson's breathless Scherzo: His Vitality reminds us with its rapid passage work and leaping bass 'groove' that Britten loved tennis and fast cars in his younger days.Paul McGhee's evocative interpretation of the March: His Sympathy represents Benjamin Britten's pacifism, as the composer writes: 'We view the music through the eyes of a pacifist. Whilst war and violence surround us, we do not engage in it and though it continues to happen around us. With the use of muted effects in most of the band throughout the piece, the flugel horn is the lone voice of reason, standing firm against the mechanical and destructive society in which it is forced to live. As the machine of war continues around the lone voice, the voice is gradually dismissed and mocked as the war machine rumbles on into the distance.'In an extended finale, entitled Toccata: His Skill, Gavin Higgins celebrates Benjamin Britten's consummate creativity. For the RNCM Festival of Brass premiere, the four contrasting movements were framed and connected by Britten's Fanfare for St. Edmundsbury for three trumpets, with the trumpet soloists spaced round the hall. I am grateful to the Britten Estate and publishers Boosey & Hawkes for giving permission for the elements of Britten's fanfare to be incorporated in the collective work.- Paul HindmarshDuration: 19.30
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£55.00Purcell Variations (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
Purcell Variations, composed in 1995, the year of the tercentenary of the death of the great English composer, was a watershed work in that it was Downie's first extended composition to be published independently of The Salvation Army and intended for wider use.For his theme, Downie has chosen what has come down to us as the hymn tune Westminster Abbey, which is in fact an adaptation made in 1842 by Ernest Hawkins, who was a Canon of Westminster Abbey where Purcell himself had been organist. Purcell's original is actually the closing section of an anthem, O God, Thou art my God, where it provides the final paean of praise, sung to repeated 'Hallelujahs'. Purcell's tune, particularly the opening triadic gesture, is used as a source of thematic and harmonic material - a quarry for ideas if you like: "I was obsessed with the intervals of thirds in Purcell's tune, rather like Brahms in his Third Symphony", the composer says.There are five variations, preceded by an extended introduction and theme. In the first variation, Purcell's lilting dance pulse has been transformed into a bright, playful sequence, in which each phrase of the melody is given its own transformation. In the second, Purcell's opening gambit is extended into a graceful, flowing waltz, featuring solo and first horn at the top of the register. The composer offers a range of metronome speeds in this movement, in which he is emulating the wistful elegance of Erik Satie's famous Gymnopedie. We enter the world of big band jazz in variation three, where Purcell's tune strides along with added syncopation and bluesy major/minor thirds to the fore. After the breathless energy and blazing brass of the big band, Downie moves into his 'home territory' for a beautifully worked lyrical variation. There is an enhanced urgency about the final variation, which opens with an extended reprise of the work's introduction. Purcell's second and third phrases provide the preparation for the exuberant return, in customary triumph of Purcell's 'Hallelujah'.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£40.00Fanfare for a New Era (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
Fanfare for a New Era is the most substantial of Edward Gregson's fanfares and was the result of a private commission by Lady Sheila Stoller to celebrate the opening in April 2017 of the Stoller Hall at Chetham's School of Music, Manchester. Gregson dedicated it to Sir Norman Stoller, who donated the funding for the new concert hall. The Fanfare was designed to fill the whole space, with separate brass choirs - trumpets, horns, trombones and tuba - playing their own music. A solo trumpeter playing 'on high' announces first the four horns and timpani, who enter with a stately measure. Next the herald trumpeter ushers in trombones, tuba and drums, with a faster dance. Finally, the remaining three trumpets amplify the peeling of bells. All four elements then come together, surrounding the audience with a 'joyful noise' of festive brass and percussion.Duration: 3.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£69.99Fanfares and Love Songs (Brass Band - Score and Parts)
Fanfares and Love Songs was commissioned by the National Children's Brass Band of Great Britain for performance on 25th July 2009. Its three movements contrast the extrovert and lyrical qualities of the traditional brass band. The fanfare with which the work opens involves the whole cornet section. The second movement is reflective in mood, beginning somewhat pensively on muted brass, and building to an emotional climax before subsiding back to a distant pianissimo chord. The finale is a fast dance, which with a final recapitulation of the opening fanfare drives on to a breathless close.Suitable for Advanced Youth/3rd Section Bands and aboveDuration: 12.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£59.95Sinfonietta - Saints and Devils (Brass Band - Score and Parts) - Wiffin, Rob
Saints and Devils is a challenging three movement work:Dance with the Devil (4.30)A Glimpse of Paradise (4.45)Reyes Magos (3.45)I wrote it when I was living in Spain where the Catholic culture is still much more prevalent than in the UK. The first two movements are a transition from dark to light; Dance with the Devil is aggressive and occasionally macabre whereas A Glimpse of Paradise is serene.The first and final parts of the second movement were originally written for a sequence in the Royal Military Tattoo 2000, played under the John Magee poem High Flight - 'Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth ............ Put out my hand, and touched the face of God'- with videos of eagle owls in flight dramatically projected onto the buildings of Horse Guards in Whitehall, London.The last movement, Reyes Magos, is the joyous fiesta of the Three Kings. In Spain, January 6th, rather than Christmas Day, is the main day of present-giving, marking the Epiphany, the arrival of the Kings from the Orient at the Nativity. Saints and Devils is technically and expressively demanding but is written within the realms of tonal language.- Rob WiffinDuration: 13.00
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£94.95Four Dances from Checkmate (Brass Band - Score and Parts) - Bliss, Arthur - Ball, Eric
Selected as the Section 1 test piece for the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain 2025Section 1 finalists will perform three of the four dances at the competition: 'Dance of the Four Knights', 'Ceremony of the Red Bishops', and 'Checkmate'. Selected for 2013 NABBA 1st Section.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£44.95Four Dances from Checkmate (Brass Band - Score only) - Bliss, Arthur - Ball, Eric
Selected as the Section 1 test piece for the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain 2025Section 1 finalists will perform three of the four dances at the competition: 'Dance of the Four Knights', 'Ceremony of the Red Bishops', and 'Checkmate'. Selected for 2013 NABBA 1st Section.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£64.00THREE JAPANESE FOLK SONGS (Brass Band) - Inagaki, Takuzo
Includes: Lazy Loafer of Aizu; The Mountain Woodcutter's Song; Villager's Festival Dance. Grade: Medium.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£125.00Dark Arteries - Gavin Higgins
Dark Arteries was commissioned by Rambert Dance Company and first performed in May 2015 with the Tredegar Town Band sharing the stage with Rambert dancers. Dark Arteries is a personal and at times highly wrought response to the Miners' Strike and its aftermath. It is in three movements, the first and last are expansive, with widely contrasting sound worlds, from dark, brooding melodies and the haunting sounds of solo flugel horn to wild syncopations on cornets, suggestive of an imposing, but often bleak mining landscape.In 2016 Higgins re-worked Dark Arteries into a virtuoso concert suite, which captures the essence of the work in three connected movements.Dark Arteries Suite was premiered by the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain, conducted by Bramwell Tovey at the Barbican Centre, London, 22 April 2017.
Estimated dispatch 5-14 working days
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